The competitive struggle in European food retailing takes place behind the scenes, i.e. at the level of purchasing alliances that retailers enter into to jointly buy cheaper. European Marketing Distribution (EMD) has just lost an important partner, the Kaufland chain, which will do business within Agecore. Founded in 2015 by Edeka, the Agecore group currently includes Colruyt (Belgium), Coop (Switzerland), Conad (Italy) and Eroski (Spain).
Purchasing coalitions are growing stronger
As a subsidiary of the Schwarz Group, Kaufland says the other Agecore members' procurement structures are ideal for them.
We cooperate with companies that also have short decision-making channels, said Joerg Ossenberg-Engels, director of the Purchasing International branch, in an interview with "Lebensmittel Zeitung". In addition to long-term partnerships with suppliers, the alliance's activities also focus on topics such as sustainability, digitalization, artificial intelligence and brand equity.
Today, supermarket companies cannot do without European partners. Purchasing coalitions have become so powerful that they attracted the attention of the European Commission last year. However, there appears to have been no evidence of anti-competitive allegations.
The Alliance also in Poland
Recall: in April, the three main French retail groups announced a purchasing alliance for an exceptionally long period: for a maximum of 10 years, Intermarché, Auchan and Casino will jointly negotiate with FMCG brand manufacturers.
The alliance also moved to the Polish market. Auchan Polska and Intermarché create a long-term purchasing alliance on our market. The companies submitted three applications to the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection. Retailers want to buy their own, national and international brand products together. The second proposal concerns the possibility of jointly purchasing goods and services for the operation of the Intermarche and Auchan networks. The third one is negotiating contracts for the marketing and promotion of food products sold to the ITME and Auchan Groups by international suppliers.